Maercutio <Maercutio@aol.com> wrote:

Not to dis the most Eternally Lost one or yourself, but these so-called *spam*
threads are actually quite beneficial. They may not relate to a specific
story, but they raise awareness of obscure yet vital topics and help seasoned
and unseasoned writers alike improve their writing. Like with my recent X-
Files/BGC thread; if not for the valuable responses I received from that, I
would''ve made a complete fool of myself in a piece of writing now gratefully
consigned to my shredder.

Up to a point, that's true; and if it didn't get past that point, I
wouldn't have a problem with it. But you and I both know that these
things escalate way past the point where they do anyone any good. The
thread you're talking about, for example, brought a whole slew of mostly
identical responses where one would've done just as well.

As for the Ryoga thread (one of the ones that Lurker and I were
complaining about), I don't think it really benefitted anybody.
Everybody knew that what you actually said was wrong, and I think we all
agree that what you had *meant* to say was correct, once we understood
what you had actually meant. I don't think anyone's mind was changed
about Ryoga. The real problem was that people were replying to your post
without first reading the followups, and so we had about 20 people
saying the same thing.

Merc, we all know how you feel about Tybalt. Here's your chance to
strike the best blow you can *against* list moderation. Let's prove that
we don't *need* a Tybalt because we're capable of keeping the spam down
to a reasonable level VOLUNTARILY.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics